Researchers discovered a second Japanese warship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on Sunday - which sank almost 80 years ago during the Battle of Midway in the Second World War.

The battle in 1942, was a key turning point in the U.S. victory in World War II but led to the loss of six warships - four Japanese and two American. A Japanese cruiser was also destroyed.

Since then, most of the ships have remained lost at the bottom of the ocean, aside from the American carrier the USS Yorktown, which was found by an expedition in 1998, three miles below the surface.

Now new technology has allowed researchers to go deeper than ever before, and scientists have uncovered two of the downed Japanese carriers; the Kaga last week, and what appears to be either the Akagi or the Soryu on Sunday.

Vulcan Inc. director of undersea operations Rob Kraft said a review of sonar data captured Sunday shows the Akagi or Soryu resting in nearly 18,000 feet of water in the Pacific Ocean more than 1,300 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor.

The researchers used an autonomous deep sea underwater vehicle, or AUV, equipped with sonar to find the ship. The vehicle had been out overnight collecting data, and the image of a warship appeared in the first set of readings on Sunday morning.

To confirm exactly which ship they've found the crew will deploy the AUV for another eight-hour mission where it will capture high-resolution sonar images of the site.  The initial readings were captures using lower resolution sonar but the high-resolution scans will allow the crew to measure the ship and confirm its identity.

The find comes on the heels of the discovery of another Japanese carrier, the Kaga, last week.

'We read about the battles, we know what happened. But when you see these wrecks on the bottom of the ocean and everything, you kind of get a feel for what the real price is for war,' said Frank Thompson, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C., who is onboard the Petrel. 'You see the damage these things took, and it's humbling to watch some of the video of these vessels because they're war graves.'

Sonar images of the Kaga show the bow of the heavy carrier hit the seafloor at a high rate of speed, scattering debris and leaving an impact crater that looks as if an explosion occurred in the ocean. 

The front of the vessel is buried in mud and sediment after nose-diving about three miles to the bottom.

The U.S. bombs that struck the Kaga caused a massive fire that left it charred, but the ship stayed mostly together. Its guns, some still intact, stick out from the side.

The crew of the research vessel Petrel is hoping to find and survey all lost ships from the 1942 Battle of Midway, which historians consider a pivotal fight for the U.S. in the Pacific during WWII.

The battle was fought between American and Japanese aircraft carriers and warplanes about 200 miles off Midway Atoll, a former military installation that the Japanese hoped to capture in a surprise attack.

The U.S., however, intercepted Japanese communications about the strike and were waiting when they arrived. More than 2,000 Japanese and 300 Americans died.

The expedition is an effort started by the late Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft. 

Kraft says the crew's mission started with Allen's desire to honor his father's military service. Allen died last year.

'It really extends beyond that at this time,' Kraft said. 'We're honoring today's service members, it's about education and, you know, bringing history back to life for future generations.'

For years, the crew of the 250-foot Petrel has worked with the U.S. Navy and other officials around the world to locate and document sunken ships. It has found more than 30 vessels so far.

It is illegal to otherwise disturb the underwater U.S. military gravesites, and their exact coordinates are kept secret. 

This is the first time it has looked for warships from the Battle of Midway, which took place six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

The attack from the Japanese Imperial Navy was meant to be a surprise, a strike that would give Japan a strategic advantage in the Pacific. 

It was thwarted when U.S. analysts decoded Japanese messages and baited their enemy into revealing its plan.

As Japanese warplanes started bombing the military installation at Midway Atoll, a tiny group of islands about 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu, U.S. forces were already on their way to intercept Japan's fleet. U.S. planes sank four of Japan's aircraft carriers and a cruiser, and downed dozens of its fighter planes.

One of the American ships lost was the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier that was heavily damaged and being towed by the U.S. on the battle's final day when it was hit by torpedoes.

The other, the USS Hammann, went down trying to defend the Yorktown.

Retired Navy Capt. Jack Crawford, who recently turned 100, was among the Yorktown's 2,270 survivors.

Japanese dive bombers left the Yorktown badly damaged, with black smoke gushing from its stacks, but the vessel was still upright.

Then the torpedoes hit said Captain Crawford: 'Bam! Bam! We get two torpedoes, and I know we're in trouble. As soon as the deck edge began to go under, I knew . she wasn't going to last.' 

Captain Crawford's later military career was with the naval nuclear propulsion program. He also served as deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy in the Department of Energy.

The Yorktown sank slowly, and a destroyer was able to pick up Captain Crawford and many others.

In May 1998, almost 56 years later, an expedition led by the National Geographic Society in conjunction with the U.S. Navy found the Yorktown 3 miles below the surface.

Crawford doesn't see much value in these missions to find lost ships, unless they can get some useful information on how the Japanese ships went down. But he wouldn't mind if someone was able to retrieve his strongbox and the brand-new sword he left in it when he and others abandoned ship 77 years ago.

He was too far away to see the Kaga go down.

A piece of the Japanese aircraft carrier was discovered in 1999, but its main wreckage was still missing - until last week.

After receiving some promising sonar readings, the Petrel used underwater robots to investigate and get video. It compared the footage with historical records and confirmed this week it had found the Kaga.

The other three Japanese aircraft carriers - the Akagi, Soryu and Hiryu - and the Japanese cruiser Mikuma are still unaccounted for.

The Petrel crew hopes to find and survey all the wreckage from the entire battle, an effort that could add new details about Midway to history books.

Earlier this year, they discovered the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier that helped win the Battle of Midway but sank in the Battle of Santa Cruz near the Solomon Islands less than five months later. More than 100 crew members died.

The Petrel also discovered the USS Indianapolis, the U.S. Navy's single deadliest loss at sea.

Rob Kraft, director of subsea operations on the Petrel, says Allen gave him and his crew a mission to preserve history, educate people about the past and honour those who fought on these great ships. Allen died last year.

Mr Kraft said: 'We're still carrying on Paul's legacy to honour our service members.

'This originated from his desire to honour his father's service to his country, and to remember our service members and to make sure that future generations remember that as well, and they actually understand what that means and to respect that.'

(Source: Associated Press- 21/10/2019)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7594221/Researchers-second-warship-WWII-Battle-Midway.html